(I’ve been in an internet free zone the last couple of days, so I am playing some catchup with posts. I am putting this together in the departures lounge of the OR Tambo Airport outside of Joburg where I have the following itinerary: Joburg to Addis Ababa, hour and a half to change planes; Addis Ababa to Rome — an hour to refuel; Rome to Dulles International in Washington’s Northern Virginia suburbs, get bags; Recheck in with American Airlines who ARE going to screw me with my baggage; Dulles to Dallas-Forth Worth; 35 minutes to change planes to fly to San Antonio and hopefully be picked up by the in laws; crash. Wake up early Wednesday, drive to Odessa with two godchildren in tow. I’m already exhausted.)
Semifinals day, but for me it was a rugby day, a sort of sporting respite from a month of soccer deluge. But first: For those of you who saw my Twitter prediction it is now true: A blind squirrel does find an acorn every now and then, because I did indeed call a 3-2 Germany win (but don’t worry — as you’ll see I blow the finals).
Last night (Friday) I attended the Blue Bulls in their opening Currie Cup match against the Pumas. The Bulls won handily, cruising to a 31-3 lead in the first half before sort of packing it in for the second half. A few random observations:
Whether it was the World Cup’s dominance or the fact that the Pumas are not expected to be very good or the fact that the Springboks played today (Saturday) the stadium was nearly empty. Many South Africans have enormous passion for rugby, with no fans more passionate than the Bulls’ but if there were 5,000 people at the game I’d be shocked. And this in Loftus Versveld, a fairly massive stadium. It looked empty, with tens of thousands of sky blue seats (the Bulls color) staring out at the pitch.
Further, I would guess that 90% or more of the crowd were Afrikaners. Rugby, and especially Blue Bulls rugby, is still their domain. The presupposition was that you spoke Afrikaans. Rugby crowds in South Africa these days tend to be more multicultural than ever before, but the trend can be overstated, and on Friday I assure you that a cameraman would have had to have looked long and hard to get a shot of faces that were not white.
One of the things that I both love and hate about South Africa is that as much as there is a pretty advanced huckster economy, there are times when it is seemingly impossible to give people my money. The Bulls game was one of those times. Apparently everyone who attends games holds season tickets, because it took me nearly a half hour to find a window that was unmarked that would sell me tickets. The downside of the season ticket dominance is that despite a 90% empty stadium I could only buy upper level tickets, though I stuck it to the man in the second half and watched from the good seats. But the inability to spend rands did not stop there. For the entire stadium they had one “beer garden” (probably a good idea given that more than a few Bulls fans have reputations for getting slobberknockered and klopping one another) and only one concession stand, and the concession stand was outside the gates, meaning if you were inside you had to go back out and run back through the gates with your ticket. I’m not certain if I appreciate all of this or if I think that South African team owners need to spend a week attending professional sporting events in the US where there is no problem separating fools from their money.
I got back to the guesthouse and ended up having drinks with a small group of locals at the attached Portuguese restaurant-cum-bar. My intention was to be in bed early to be up early to watch the Springboks at a nearby pub in Hatfield. Instead I stayed up late and ended up getting up early. I kind of wish I hadn’t. In the days leading up to the opening match of the Tri Nations the narrative was clear: this might be the greatest of all Springbok sides, they are far more talented than their All Black and Aussie foes, and they should open the greatest of all annual test tournaments in style — by beating the All Blacks in Auckland, where die Bokke had not won since 1937.
Well, they still have not won there since 1937. In my fifteen or so years of following the Springboks I cannot remember a more disappointing outcome. Not only was the result dreadful (32-12) but the way they played was just wretched. I suspect things will change this coming weekend when the two sides meet again, and pulling a split of the road leg with New Zealand is hardly the worst outcome. But the game was especially disheartening to me because it is likely to be the only Springbok game I see all year, barring me discovering some way to view the games online. (If anyone knows of a way, please do tell in the comments).
From the game I slumped back to the guesthouse and awaited my transport to Joburg and the last leg of my journey. I stayed at a nice place, more of a loft-style flat than a simple room, and while it was some distance from Melville, they did make transport easy. I went into Melville for the rousing semifinal game. Germany played more inspired football than I would have expected, and Uruguay, as has been their style all tournament, fought tooth and nail and Diego Forlan almost drew the game even with a free kick from about 30 meters at the very end. As it was he had one of the goals of the tournament (he arguably had three of the top ten) for their second score.
One game left, one day left of this remarkable tournament. One day left for South Africa’s month of glory.